​Lessons from the World of Politics

It might be hard to imagine what kinds of lessons the nonprofit world could learn from the political one. Yet, Tarsha Whitaker Calloway from NonProfit Pro identified six specific connections to consider.

Some of the most
important lessons are related to flipping perspective on its head.

Nonprofit
fundraisers often focus on telling the positive aspects of their work. Yet
political staffers know that people often make decisions based as much on how
much they dislike something rather than by how much they like something. People
are swayed by attacks, even if they don’t want to be. What should fundraisers
do about that? Think about a way to flip the story to focus on fighting a
common enemy (such as homelessness, hunger, etc.)

Establishing
solid deadlines is something that political campaigns do very well. Even in
advance of election day, there are a series of fundraising deadlines that campaigns
leverage to inspire contributors to their side. Nonprofits could benefit by
following a similar method of target setting.

Like political
campaigns, nonprofits should also consider the value of the sound bite. There is much to be
gained by distilling a complicated message or mission into four or five
memorable words.